Singapore and Chongqing businesses signed a total of 17 memoranda of understanding (MOU) on the sidelines of the Smart China Expo (SCE) Online, as businesses continued to explore opportunities amid the restrictions arising from Covid-19.
Thirty-two companies and organisations from Singapore participated in this year’s virtual exhibition, the first time the SCE has gone completely digital.
The MOUs ranged from collaborations in built environment and manufacturing, to logistics and tourism for markets in Chongqing, Western China and Singapore.
The annual SCE is Chongqing’s most significant platform for tech leaders and the digital community to promote innovation and forge partnerships.
To further promote collaborations, companies from both cities submitted over 30 joint proposals to the initial wave of the Joint Innovation Development Fund (JIDF) over the past year. Fourteen joint proposals were subsequently endorsed by the Joint Evaluation Committee comprising industry and academia from Chongqing and Singapore
“Chongqing is a key node into Western China, Singapore is likewise, a gateway into South East Asia. It is heartening to see that business engagements have continued, despite Covid restrictions, enabled by moving from the physical onto the digital domain,” says Lew Chuen Hong, CEO of Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA).
